While this finale is a day or two later than normal, Film Fight has mostly run to schedule this year. As per my perennial caveat, Film Fight is done in
a (not particularly serious) knock-out style: it can pick a first place, but everything else is unknown.

First up, the honourable mentions: films that were good but didn’t win their month:

Molly’s Game

Darkest Hour

Phantom Thread

Black Panther

Mute

Lady Bird

Ravenous

Red Sparrow

Game Night

You Were Never Really Here

Annihilation

First Match

Ghost Stories

6 Balloons

Roxanne Roxanne

Isle of Dogs

Thoroughbreds

Come Sunday

Avengers: Infinity War

Sicario 2: Soldado

Tag

Hotel Artemis

Mission Impossible: Fallout

Blackkklansman

American Animals

Operation Finale

The Land of Steady Habits

Bad Times at the El Royale

Apostle

Private Life

The Night Comes For Us

The Other Side of the Wind

Outlaw King

Widows

Cam

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Sorry to Bother You

That’s far more honourable mentions than in previous years. Lots of good stuff this year, particularly with Netflix releasing a heap of good indie films at the bookends of the year.

Now, the monthly winners:

January: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

February: The Shape of Water

March: I, Tonya

April: A Quiet Place

May: Kodachrome

June: Cargo

July: Calibre

August: Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind

September: Hold the Dark

October: First Man

November: Wildlife

December: Roma

First, I want to give an extra nod to Phantom Thread. It didn’t win its month, and… I’m regretting that now. I loved it at the time, and having seen it again, it’s a film of the year contender. That said, the results stand. I’ve not been pointlessly running a knockout tournament for a decade to change the rules now.

I also want to mention Sorry To Bother You. It’s UK release was heavily delayed, but it’s absolutely worth finding and watching. It’s as strong as almost any of the winners, but was just in a strong month.

It’s been a very strong year. The late spring/early summer months are a little weaker, but still good; and the rest all hold up.

The weight and dark comedy of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri helped start the year of fantastically, with Frances McDormand rightly taking an Oscar.

Jeremy Saulnier returned with Hold the Dark; a creepy tale, with some beautiful shots and fantastic performances (Jeffrey Wright is a great actor). The fact we’re now getting films of this quality on streaming services tells you that they should be taken very seriously. More on that in a minute.

There can only be one winner, though. Recency often biases selection, but I think Roma is going to hold up as a masterpiece. Alfonso Cuaron’s camera work is magnificent: slow, grounded, almost objective. You’re forced to live these moments with the characters, not because the camera is frenetically matching them. No, it’s slowing down to a normal pace and careful choreography forces you to see everything they do. Beautiful, deeply moving, technically impressive. With Roma, Netflix have the first Film Fight winner for a streaming service.